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OPINION: The rose of Darjan

BLOGISTA

By Cha Monforte

feb 3

Daneco OIC GM Allan Laniba isn’t supposed to be the target of the Darjan’s List of 54 deficiencies of the power cooperative. Messy things inside were there before Laniba assumed as top management honcho, albeit temporary.I managed to browse the recent operations audit report of the National Electrification Administration, and a lot of officials, persons and agencies dealing with Daneco mentioned would still have to account, liquidate and justify their expenditures, or refund the monies disallowed by NEA or pay Daneco for the funds absconded. Most of these improper and questionable acts were done before Laniba’s assumption as OIC GM April last year. But this is worth for another series of essays on what’s happening with Daneco inside based on the NEA audit report.

Daneco’s primary lines, according to Darjan, are already over 20 years old and ideally, these need rehabilitation after ten years of usage. The director-treasurer asked on whether the management has already a program for rehabilitation of the primary lines. It was thrown as though the planning of this isn’t within the ambit of the policy-making powers of the BOD.

Darjan also reckoned that about 70 percent of Daneco’s 12,000 transformers has the age of over 4 years while transformers are supposed to have efficient time of two years only. What has been happening is that transformer is replaced only after it blows up. With the practice, core loss is happening and load assessment becomes messy, Darjan said.

There’s also this case where suppliers of Daneco transformers had not been lately required of certificate of warranty even as this had been imposed before as a supply contract requirement, though only halfheartedly, according to Darjan. The case led Briz, Darjan and Co. to inquire further until they reached the extent of whether the supply underwent bidding or not. Darjan bared that in some cases favored suppliers did not pass the bidding as the management only resorted to repeat orders.

But here’s a sweetener offered by Darjan: “I don’t question their integrity, but only the process itself kay sa ordinaryong tawo makaingon sila nga may binuang (for ordinary people might say there’s misdeed here)”. It is even alleged that some Daneco contractors and suppliers had been then favored “kay malakas sa sulod”, and knowing this, Briz, Darjan and Co. accordingly amended the Daneco procurement policy last year as “there’s a need to institute transparent and democratic process”.

Darjan further bared that before, in some instances few bidders did not even put up the bidders’ bond while others delivered late but were accepted without even being charged of penalty. Worst, Darjan added “advance payment to suppliers was made when it was only the purchase order ( PO ) that was delivered and not the supply. This was the case to the supplier of the 6,000 digital readers which were delivered on November 2009 while the PO was served sometime July to August last year, the time when “the supplier got 50-percent cash advance” from P6-million project even as the supplier had yet to go to China to procure the supply. (To be continued)

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BLOGS AND BITS: BLOGS AND BITS: One Israel ’s gaffe. Boardmember Roger Israel, candidate for vice governor in Davao del Norte has accordingly fetish for microphone. Without being asked, he took the microphone before the recent blessing of a FM station in Tagum City and started emceeing with his comic bolantero-like tones.…. Israel made an uncalled-for gaffe in one of national conventions he attended. There in a posh hotel in Manila , he took the initiative to become an emcee. Sources said Israel was quoted to have uttered “informative information” while emceeing. That’s just fine as he’s also a member of the local media, the mediaman who rose to become a successful Tagum politician…. Dr. Fred De Veyra is a versatile Tagum politician. He’s being loved by the masa for his natural ways of playing the art of politics. He’s a natural man on the street. He’s been serving the city and province by giving affordable eye care service and affordable reading glasses. He’s the Mata ng Bayan. He is running for boardmember in Davao del Norte’s District 1. (e-mail: chamonforte@yahoo.com)